A new Conceptualization of Pan-Atlantic Relationships

Figure I

NAFTA - 131,644 11,109 55,706 198,459

Africa 13,307 39,340 - 2,162 54,809

South America 85,191 35,638 1,822 - 122,651

Total 245,335 206,622 71,459 102,699

NAFTA - 159.988 17,667 49,916 227,571

Africa 9,382 47,201 - 2,096 58,679

South America 101,064 268,014 2,195 - 164,084

Total 269,619 268,014 80,358 91,375

Source:

Africa

Egypt 677 746 10

Ethiopia 92 96 4

Kenya 262 274 5

Nigeria 935 946 1

South Africa 3,394 3,185 -6

EU

France 22,330 26,290 18

Italy 15,430 18,850 22

United Kingdom 15,800 19,020 20

Latin America

Argentina 6,627 7,909 20

Brazil 3,718 4,084 10

Chile 2,322 4,173 80

Venezuela 3,298 3,457 5

NAFTA

Canada 17,370 19,000 9

United States 24,140 27,550 15

Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1997.

Note: Data are given in constant 1995 dollars.

It can also be noted that trade between the EU and Latin America surpasses that between NAFTA and Africa. First, because of the desire of both the EU and Mercosur to develop this relationship, for a variety of strategic and political reasons. Second, because of the lack of a growing market in NAFTA for African goods. Third, because of the colonial legacy which gives France and the U.K. an inherent advantage over the U.S. in trade with Africa. From this we can note that the relative intensity of the trade relationship between NAFTA and the EU is consistent with the historic focus on the security dimensions of the relationship between these northern partners to the exclusion of the other linkages.

Capital flows among Atlantic Rim nations show some interesting patterns. As would be expected there is little capital movement between Africa and Latin America, significant North to South movement and intense interaction between North America and the EU. With regard to Latin America, including Mexico, of the stock of direct investment, as of 1989, 48 per cent originated in the U.S. and 28 per cent in the EU. U.S. sources exceed those of the EU in Mexico alone by 63 to 20 per cent, in Chile by 45 to 17 per cent in Venezuela by 46 to 20 per cent and in Columbia by 71 to 11 per cent. The gap narrows for Argentina to 42 to 37 per cent, and in Brazil EU sources actually exceed those of the U.S. by 38 to 28 per cent.¹⁴

In an interesting statistical mapping of the world trade patterns, Jessie Poon confirms that the Western Hemisphere (as well as Israel and Egypt) is in the orbit of the United States, and that Europe and all but the north-eastern corner of Africa are dominated by either the United Kingdom or Germany.. He also demonstrates the degree to which this structure has developed since 1965.¹⁵ What is not included in these two regions of this mapping are the Russia and Central Europe region, and the Japanese “region” which includes all of South-east and Southern Asia as well as the Middle east and parts of eastern Africa. This gives further confirmation of the integrity of the Atlantic Rim as a bifurcated region and its potential for developing a set of closer connections.

4b. Cultural and intellectual contact - The cultural linkages among the Atlantic Rim regions are as complex as are any of the other linkages. They are certainly more important than any other since if antagonism reigns here it will affect all other relationships. Given the position of Europe in the trans-Atlantic space since the 15^th century, the emergence of the United States as a power in the 19^th century, the prominence of the slave trade for much of the period, and the relatively subordinate position of African and Latin American nations, Canada and Mexico throughout most of their histories, each of the individual bilateral links is characterized by a mixture of commonality and mistrust. It is obviously impossible to due justice to such a rich and extensive set of relationships, but one would be remiss in a review of the Atlantic Rim region if one did not discuss some of the primary aspects that are of importance today.

We may begin with what is clearly the strongest and most extensive of the linkages, that of the North Atlantic. Cultural relations among the nations of Europe and North America are of special importance because, along with agriculture, it is one of the few unresolved issues in international trade relations. Canada and France, and therefore the European Union, consider cultural goods to be in a category that is fundamentally different than are other traded goods and each has long sought to impose policies that would provide a space for the cultural industries of each country to flourish; the United States has for an equally long period argued that books, magazines, films, etc., are no different from any other good and should not be accorded special treatment.

The reason for this lack of agreement on the proper treatment of culture goods is the different experiences each has had with articulation of its own culture. In the case of Europe, the challenge has been that of differentiating between its culture and that of its neighboring cultures of Africa, the world of Islam and the Slavic nations.¹⁶ Unlike Africa and the Americas, Europe is not a continent but rather a space that is physically connected with Eurasia. Thus when Europe thinks of articulating and protecting its culture it does this in the context of other contiguous cultures that are dramatically different in nature. Europe extols individualism, democracy, personal liberty, private property, pluralism, separation of powers, and Christianity as alternatives to tribalism, communalism, theocracy, other religions, and so forth. By contrast, North American, and to a lesser extent Latin American, culture is derivative of European cultural values. To the extent that these peoples celebrate democracy, individualism, etc., they are celebrating values the got from Europe rather than developed themselves. Each North Atlantic society, of course, puts its own twist on these common values and gives its unique stress on one of more of them. The distressing consequence of the differing approaches taken by the European, Canadian and American governments to the trade in cultural goods is that what ought to be uniquely a means of uniting peoples has become one of the most intransigent contributors to conflict among them.

In the Post-Colonial period, the complex of imperial relations between African nations and the several colonial powers, Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Portugal has been replaced by two structured relationships: the British Commonwealth and the Francophonie. The history of Britain and France in Africa began centuries ago, but formal associations between the colonial center in Europe and its ex-colonies were established only as the latter were able begin convincingly to achieve independence or an enhanced degree of autonomy. The Commonwealth was established with the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which at the same time created the relatively autonomous entity of Dominion status as defined in the Balfour Report of 1926.¹⁷ The Commonwealth was designed to be a constitutional structure that would give recognition to the enhanced status of former colonies, such as Canada. In 1936 the members of the Commonwealth formally asserted their independence from decisions of the British Parliament. In 1949 the name was changed from the British Commonwealth of Nations to the Commonwealth of Nations, in recognition of the multiracial and international nature of its membership. The membership includes several of the Caribbean nations, Belize, Guyana and Canada in the Americas and a dozen countries in Africa. It comprises almost 50 nations, many of which are rather small islands, with about 20 per cent of the world’s population.

The Commonwealth is not primarily a community based the English language, nor do all English speaking countries participate – for example, neither the United States nor Ireland are members. Indeed it is comprised by two sets of countries is rather different circumstances: the “lands of settlement” such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and former colonies from which the British largely departed upon independence, such as India and the countries of Africa and the Caribbean. Cultural relations are dominated by economic considerations as a raison d’être. Andrew Walker has described it as “a voluntary association of countries whose histories were intertwined for a period and therefore have certain things in common.”¹⁸ Britain, somewhat less casual about it than Walker suggests, sought to retain through the structure of the Commonwealth the nineteenth century relationship of “complimentarity,” with the colonial economies supplying raw materials and labor intensive products to the industrialized “workshop of the world” at the center of the Imperial structure. As other sources of both types of goods became available to both sides of the relationship at lower prices, as economic development began to accelerate in some of the previously colonized economies, and as Britain’s position in the global economy began to slide and new strategic thinking became required the traditional relationship was decreasingly tenable. Indeed, as Britain came to see membership in the European Economic Community as necessary for its economic well-being Imperial Preferences (privileged access to member markets by other Commonwealth members) and other aspects of the Commonwealth structure became a hindrance that could not be sustained.

The primary activities of the Commonwealth are now limited to consultation of government ministers and delegations on specific problems such as rural development, agricultural production, health, the condition of women, youth employment and the environment. There are also programs for technological development and scholarships for students to pursue their studies in British universities. Indeed a listing of Commonwealth institutions issued in 1985 identified twenty pages of official organizations, and another seventy-five pages of unofficial organizations. Their subject matters extend from culture to sport to media and commerce. The most important of these entities, the Commonwealth Secretariat (established in 1965), “facilitates consultations and exchanges of information between member governments,” and similar activities.¹⁹ No mention is made of military or defense relations. Thus, while the original conceptualization was along the line of the nineteenth century notion of Imperial Federation, changes in the economic situation of the member countries and in the globalized context in which they function has reduced the importance of the Commonwealth to its members. It is now just another of the many organizational structures to which most of them belong.

The relationship between France and Africa and its other ex-colonies is composed of two elements: those within the Francophonie and those that are not part of it. The former relationships are based primarily on culture and language, including education, research, and communication. They are also multilateral in nature and are nested in a complex of North-North (France, Belgium, Canada, and Switzerland), North-South and South-South (for example, scholarships for African students in educational institutions in Morocco) ties.²⁰ The initiative implemented by France has, as would be expected, become the more structured and influential than the Commonwealth. The Francophonie is essentially a relationship between France and Africa; in the Western Hemisphere only Canada and Haiti are members and in Asia it is only Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. In each of these countries the percentage of the population that functions in the French language is a minor fraction of the whole, except for Haiti and, in Canada, Quebec and New Brunswick. It is in Africa that large populations of francophones outside Europe are to be found and where the institutional structure is the densest and most extensive.

In contrast with the Commonwealth, the Francophonie is explicitly based on use and preservation of the common language and its primary activities are cultural in nature. Established in 1969 at a conference held in Niamey (Niger), the formal organization of the Francophonie, L’agence de coopération culturelle et technique (ACCT), has as its objectives multinational cooperation in the areas of education training, culture, science and technology, and the rapprochement of the peoples of member nations. In contrast to the scores of official and unofficial entities listed by the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Francophonie comprises just 19 organizations and associations half of which are concerned with language and literature written in French.²¹

One of the primary multilateral institutions that preceded the Francophonie was the Franc Zone, a currency area based on the French Franc. Established in 1930, the Franc Zone was designed to maintain fixed exchange rates between the French Franc and the currencies of France’s overseas Departments and several countries of the Communauté financierè africaine. Its objective was that of ensuring stable economic conditions throughout the zone and of encouraging the trade flows of primary goods to France and of French manufactures to the lesser developed countries primarily in Africa and Asia. This initiative was terminated in 1994 after repeated requests by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as a distortive and inefficient intervention.²² But it was the evolution of the global economy that made the Franc zone unimportant for France. During the inter-war years trade between France and its colonies grew from 14 per cent in 1926 to over 26 per cent in 1938. But by the time Charles deGaulle returned to the presidency in 1958, trade had declined to about 6 per cent and the Franc zone accounted for less than 2 per cent of France’s direct investment abroad. Thus the only linkage that was sustainable in the post-World War II years was the linguistic and cultural one.

A small number of individual Latin American countries have also participated the Commonwealth and the Francophonie for decades, but the most promising recent initiative at closer ties has been that of Spain. With its legacy of domination, the relationship between Latin America and Spain has languished since the struggles for independence in the 1820’s. Latin Americans were torn between the positions of José Martí, who argued for “our America” free from external cultural influences, and of Domingo Sarmiento, who sought to introduce the “civilizing” influences of European, primarily British and French, science and learning.²³ However, even establishment of the Iberoamerican Union in 1900 could not hide the face that neither Latin Americans nor Spaniards were much interested in developing closer ties.²⁴ In 1992, the government of Spain sponsored the Universal Exposition in Seville to celebrate the 500^th anniversary of Columbus’ encounter with the Americas. Designed to reassert Seville’s and Spain’s past role as “gateway to the Americas,” it was accompanied by the Cervantes initiative, set up on the model of Alliance Française and the Goethe Institut, through which it was hoped that Spain could reassert itself as the center of Hispanic language and culture. It was also an effort to elevate Spain’s position within Europe. There is an inherent contradiction in this effort as many in Latin America argue that a bridge between Spanish-speaking Americas and Europe, and for that matter North America, can only be successfully established if Latin America’s unique culture and society are recognized – can Spain be the center of the Spanish-speaking world?²⁵

While the relationships between the three colonial powers of the nineteenth century, Britain, France and Spain, and the countries over which they held dominance has had a real presence and value to many of the participants during the past few decades, one must wonder how important these cultural and institutional structures will be in the years to come. Market-based economic relations with primacy given to efficiency and material gain are demonstrating that previously beneficial preferential relationships are in the end costly affairs which neither partner in the exchange may wish to continue. As English becomes the functional universal language of scientific enquiry, of business and of mass culture, and as the old imperial powers no longer hold any advantage in the development of knowledge, other countries such as the United States, Japan, Canada or, indeed, countries in the developing world may come to be seen as more important contributors to progress and development. Thus, the evaluation of Jean-Louis Roy a decade ago that “the Francophonie has become a work of our time...it is revealed capable of thinking and of acting as a single entity, devoted to vitality and growth”²⁶ may be an expression of enthusiasm rather than of cold perspicacity.

In describing the cultural relations throughout the Atlantic Rim area the concept “cultural imperialism” is often used. By this it is meant that one culture that is dominant, either through the compelling nature of its elements or due to the market-size dominated economics of culture goods production, and that this culture crowds out others of, perhaps, smaller nations. Among industrial countries Canada and France have pressed this argument most consistently, but the concept also fits well into the received experience of most ex-colonial societies. It would take more space than is available here to discuss this adequately. While it may strike some as imperialist to argue Domingo Sarmiento’s point about the superiority of European and U.S. science and rationality, a less arrogant position can be put that suggests that the values of personal liberty and participatory democracy, espoused by both Europe and North America, do have positive benefit for citizens on Latin America and Africa. If this point is accepted, then Americanization and Europeanization should properly be seen as modernization, a concept that is far less charged with notions of manipulation and exploitation.

4d. Defense relations – Since its founding in 1948, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been the central organizational linkage in Atlantic defense of Canada, the United States and Western Europe. Conflict between nations of Africa and of Latin America has been limited to relatively small scale affairs with little or no potential to develop into continental conflagration. North America has been freed of conflict during the twentieth century. Only in Europe has conflict developed that has had intercontinental ramifications. These realities will determine the attention given to the various linkages in this section. Atlantic defense relations is an extensively and thoroughly studied area and the reader will, no doubt, be familiar with the major developments and issues that have been raised; hence, the discussion here will be a rather truncated one. The discussion in this section will be limited to consideration of the linked questions of the ability of NATO to find a new post-Cold War function for itself and the ability of the nations of the EU to develop a role in global security affairs, commensurate with its role in global economics, beyond Europe itself, and the potential roles of Africa and South America in Atlantic security.

4d1. NATO and the EU in the new context - In the post-Cold War context that was ushered in in 1989, much of the reason for a unified structure under the leadership of the United States disappeared. The prospect of a global conflagration that would engage Europe, North America and at least one other continent lost its immediacy as the Soviet Union became Russia and the Confederation of Independent States and its military capacity was judged to have suffered a substantial deterioration. While the United States has sought to maintain its position as the leader of the western alliance, in both economic and military functions, the nations of the European Union have sought to fashion a new structure that is not only more relevant, in their eyes, to the new global security reality but also more in conformity with the needs of their process of integration, with both its deepening and its enlarging dimensions. The former requires that they pursue more coherent and autonomous EU structures in all spheres of the economy, political decision-making, border security, and collective defense. The defense aspect of this process is most graphically captured by the recent departure in October of 1999 of the Spaniard Javier Solana from the position of Secretary General of NATO to take up the responsibilities of the EU’s first coordinator for foreign and security policy. The latter makes them more enthusiastic than the US regarding the extension of NATO membership to the nations of Central Europe and the Baltic.

While the US has generally supported the extension of NATO membership to selected countries in Central Europe and expansion of EU membership as well, there is a potential outcome that causes considerable consternation in Washington. The problem is the overlapping membership of the various organizations and the implications this has for the US. NATO consists of Canada, the US, and all of the EU members with the exception of Ireland, Finland Sweden and Austria. The Western European Union, created in 1948 as a mechanism for monitoring German rearmament, is comprised of the EU members except the Nordic members, Ireland and Austria. This linkage was made explicit in the Maastricht Treaty on European Union (1992). The extension of EU membership to the Baltic States and the several Central European nations, including among others Bulgaria and Romania, has obvious implications about EU security commitments throughout the region. The US has explicit security commitments to NATO members but if the EU members of NATO in turn choose to make explicit commitments to who knows what countries to the east, sorting this out in a time of crisis and containing unintended US involvement could be extremely difficult.²⁷ It is interesting to note that in speeches on the US-EU relationship, senior US officials often discuss NATO and the UE and also the ECSC, but make no mention of the WEU.²⁸ This is especially bothersome in light of the difficulty of the EU nations to form a unified, timely and effective response to the conflict in ex-Yugoslavia. In both Bosnia and Kosovo, the US was ultimately forced to assert its leadership and to orchestrate a common response. To implement this response the US was assisted by some, but not all, members of the EU. Whether it would be willing to undertake such action in the case of disruptions further to the east is not at all certain.

Europe is not the only regional commitment of the United States. US forces have been deployed to conflicts in Asia, the Middle East and Central America. Perceived by all to be the sole super- or global-power, or in the words of the French foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine “hyper power,” the US has had, since the end of the Second World War, obligations and national interests that have gone far beyond those of the nations of the EU. As the EU progresses in its integration scheme and seeks to develop security objectives to match its less parochial economic objectives, the question of the complementary or conflictual relationship with those of the US must be raised. In the Transatlantic Agenda of 1995 the US and the EU have agreed to cooperate on security issues in the Middle East and in Korea. The extent of actual EU involvement in time of crisis will only be ascertained in the event and the forging of common objectives that will engage most or all EU members may prove more difficult in actuality than it has on paper. James A. Thomson argues that “unless Europe moves decisively to counteract the growing perception in the United States of its unwillingness to help the United States outside of Europe, there will probably never be another NATO operation like the one in Bosnia.²⁹ More fundamentally, is the willingness of the EU members to allocate the resources required for it to play a military role that is commensurate with its economic role. This would require a very substantial increase in revenues, increased taxes and/or reduced expenditures, that it is not unreasonable to doubt EU citizens will be willing to make. Thus the most probable forecast is that the EU will continue to be a “free rider,” at least in the eyes of the US government, when it comes to global strategic and military affairs.

John Peterson uses the example of the establishment of the “Eurocorps” to illustrate the complexities of forming a unified EU position of security issues. President Mitterand and Chancellor Kohl proposed in 1992 that the existing French-German brigade be expanded to a force of up to 40.000 troops, in part through incorporation of forces from other EU member states. Spain and Belgium argued that this violated what was agreed at Maastricht. The Netherlands and the UK declined to participate on the assertion that this step would undermine NATO. The US complained that it was not consulted and that it was suggested during a rethinking of NATO strategy. He concludes that “the challenge for USA-EU relations became the search for compromise within a myriad of national agendas.”³⁰

4d2. What of Africa and South America? – The north-south Atlantic Rim relations have not been the sort that would support the development of closer ties throughout the region. Britain had its war with Argentina over the Falklands in the 1980’s and the US has had an active engagement in Central America that has been sordid at best. The local conflicts in Africa have attracted the military attention primarily of France, but the humanitarian disasters of, among others, Rwanda and the Congo, have brought non-military assistance from many nations in North America and the EU. However when France proposed intervention in Rwanda, basing that action on humanitarian needs, no other EU member supported that action. One British scholar has written that: “Deploying forces overseas retains overtones of (the) colonial period and is perceived as old-fashioned at best and immoral neo-colonialism at worst.”³¹ Neither the Commonwealth nor the Francophonie has a significant military vocation and, as was noted above, each is limited to such topics as culture, education and development assistance.

Britain has sharply cut back its military presence in Africa and of the other EU members only France has bi-lateral military relationships with several African countries. These were established with the specific intention of pursuing France’s national interest. Military advisors have been stationed in over twenty countries. France contributes financially to the salaries of some defense staff, and offers financial aid for military purchases. Currently there are seven French military bases in African countries, eight mutual defense agreements, and twenty-six agreements for military cooperation.³² The EU itself has not developed a security relationship with either Africa or Latin America.

In the Americas, economic development, engagement in the global economy through initiatives aimed at liberalizing trade and investment flows and an area-wide movement toward more democratic political processes have greatly reduced the likelihood of conflict with the US. For the first time since the end of the Second World War, there is no prospect of US military action in Central or South America on the horizon.

Finally, it should be noted that the defense relationships between the national of Africa and those of Latin America are negligible.

4e. Tourism – Data for the flows of tourists among the four Atlantic Rim regions is presented in Figure III. The magnitude of each of the flows is the result of a variety of factors, such as: cultural ties, per capita income and promotional activities. These suggest why the contact between Africa and Latin America is relatively so insignificant and that of Europe and North America dominates the figures, 51 per cent of the total for the six linkages. The travel between Europe and Africa is concentrated in a small number of countries: France, Spain and Italy and Morocco, Tunisia and South Africa. In the Americas, travel between the United States, and both Mexico and Puerto Rico is especially significant.